Written Under Duress By Critical Bill...

Sunday, January 25, 2015

I awoke feeling my heart beating from my gums. My wisdom teeth. I really should have them removed. But I wouldn't have been able to stay asleep regardless. I was only a few hours removed from seeing Birdman starring Michael Keaton in the role that has been labeled a "comeback."

Birdman like fellow 2015 Oscar darling Boyhood I had followed via IMDB for years. The Michael Keaton watch began shortly after the 2009 Oscars which brought to a close the Cinderella-esque journey of Mickey Rourke from the bowels of Hollywood tragedy to resurrected dramatic actor. My friend and I had said in the wake of Rourke's resurgence that it would be great to see Michael Keaton do the same.

That's how my following of Birdman began because as you first read the plot summary, it sounded meant for the Batman of the now 30 year old generation. Like that little exchange between Seth Rogen and Zach Efron. Yeah, Michael Keaton was our Batman. He was our guy.

That was the two-fold punch that I expected from Birdman all of these years. Funny thing now seeing it, it couldn't be further. It's more like a gut punch that really bruises on the inside. You feel it the next day. That's where I'm at with my sudden awaking on a Sunday morning.

Birdman, put simply, is every bit as emotionally moving as any film this year. It just happens to be buried beneath heavy Hollywood satire and the tongue in cheek tug of war between film actors and thespians of the stage; not to mention scenes and moments that seem cultivated from Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.

I could get into the filming of Birdman, and how it embodies the stage aspect in its filming framed around it's Broadway setting. I could expound on the comparisons to Hitchcock's underrated vehicle Rope. Undoubetly, it's a true exercise in ambitious, patient filmmaking, and laser-focused acting that leaves little room for error.

There's a beautiful raw lesson coated underneath all of that, though, that deserves the real attention. Birdman is not just about an actor making a comeback. It's about a man coming to grips with the fact that ego is fleeting and his own laser focus on what he considered art is in actuality infantile compared to the real moments that count in life. Keaton weeps in the third act about missing his child's birth and the attention he gave his career non-stop over the years; the obsession he's dealing with now in this comeback to the stage his character is making after years of being a blockbuster superhero.

That's the heart of this movie. The realization that a lot of what we might think really matters actually means half as much as the things we may be ignoring around us. Whether it's art, sports, or pure, raw capitalism on the battle grounds of entrepreneurship, we're easily strayed to push ourselves so hard for the brass ring, while we neglect our family around us sometimes.

When we went to the theater tonight, our intention was to see American Sniper. Surprisingly, every showing was sold out the rest of the night. Every one of them. My wife and I found ourselves stuck with having to pick an alternative on the fly. Birdman might not have been her cup of tea, but then again, maybe it didn't need to be. I found myself almost disappointed or let down at first that she didn't have the same zeal I did when we got in the car. But maybe that's because it didn't need to be poignant for her because she has her priorities in line consistently.

I, on the other hand, am an obsessive, relentless, damn near psychotic artist, and that's not meant to be pretentious. I am obsessed with creating, whether its in acting, writing, editing, even just in wrestling and film in general. The tunnel vision forms, and I get dialed in, and it won't go away until the job is done or the piece is done or the podcast is edited. Art really is an obsession. But that's why Birdman was so poignant for me. The wake Michael Keaton's character has left on his thematic journey is one that has negated the truly beautiful moments of life.

Where this film ultimately succeeds, and I know this is reaching and it won't land on everyone, but it's a film that doesn't make you cry in the moment. It doesn't land right then and there in your chair. It comes along afterwards, and that to me is the mark of what makes a film really special nowadays. It lands and stays because it's deep down something very universal that we can't merely cast to the side.

Now the final irony sinks in. My wife is sleeping right now. We're seven weeks into our pregnancy. Ours, it's really hers, but its our journey together. I just told you Birdman was a movie about letting go of obsession. What am I doing now but mingling once again with my obsession on the keyboard. It's time to close up shop. Res Ispa Loquitur. The Thing Speaks For Itself.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Al Snow lumbers around the ring, microphone in hand; a
frustrated man caught in an elusive quest for the WWF Hardcore Championship.
He's at Monday Night Raw (run on Saturday night, so technically Saturday Night
Raw) wanting to have a hardcore match. No one appears, the scene for Snow
getting desperate.

February 1999.

Snow, caught in a limbo of disappointment, reacts with an
Attitude Era first: he has a hardcore match with himself to give the fans their
money's worth and to satiate his own masochistic. He opens with a couple of
microphone blasts to his head but quickly graduates to broken brooms over his
cranium and exhausting a fire extinguisher in his own face. The coup de grace
comes when he moonsaults himself through a table to a confused audience delight.
The limitations of in-ring insanity have reached a new high.

The camera cuts to the ramp way. One of Snow's fellow JOB
squad cohorts walks toward the ring simultaneously concerned and irritated. Bob
Holly, far removed from the days of Thurman and Sparky Plugg, not too far
removed from being the Bombastic half of the New Midnight Express. He enters
the ring as a friend trying to halt the unusual and self destructive behavior
of Snow, but actually catalyzes a brawl that instantly annuls the alliance they
had in the JOB Squad.

As only wrestling can, this becomes the instant build to a
match at the next pay-per-view, St. Valentine's Day Massacre for the vacant WWF
Hardcore Championship.

...

"I didn't think anything other than I was there as a
body to put Al over, but I was happy to hear I would be on a pay-per-view
and hopefully get a decent payday out of it.I din't know it at the time, but this was the birth of Hardcore
Holly." - Bob Holly, The Hardcore Truth

The Attitude Era podcast is bar-none the best wrestling
podcast in the world of on-demand wrestling audio, especially during a time in
the current WWE climate when it's sadly cliched to utter over and over
"When is the Attitude Era coming back?"

The genius of the podcast lies not exclusively in the
spot-on humor that creates clever and lasting memes but also in its analysis
that removes the rose-colored glasses that many in the internet wrestling

community wear in regards to the Attitude Era. In one of their
episodes in particular, hosts Kefin Mahon, Adam Bibilo, and Billy Keable
perfectly sum up the misconception of this golden era of the business.

"Many people think the Attitude Era was just three
years of Steve Austin riding a beer truck or a zamboni." - Attitude Era
podcast

And if it's not Steve Austin on a beer truck, it's about The
Rock liking pie, DX telling everyone to "suck it," or Jerry Lawler's
obsession with "puppies." The TV-14 era of wrestling television.

But there in lies the misconception. There was a lot more
going on in the Attitude Era, and there was a considerable amount at times that
wasn't very good. But that's not for this piece. When you follow the
pay-per-views of 1998-2001 and re-examine the matches and storylines years
removed from being a kid or even a teenager, there are some gems that emerge;
diamonds in the rough that really weren't in any rough. We just became blind to
them in the midst of Austin vs. McMahon.

And there all along right in front of all of us was one of
the Attitude Era's most unsung heroes.

When Hardcore Holly ruled the world.

...

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre pay-per-view was centered
around the match everyone had been wanting for almost a year: Stone Cold Steve
Austin vs. Vince McMahon in a steel cage. Fans were salivating to see the Texas
Rattlesnake finally get his hands on McMahon in not just a one-on-one match but
a steel cage on top of it. The co-main event had Mankind and The Rock in the
final pay-per-view match of their feud spanning from the end of 1998 with the
WWF title on the line; fittingly stipulated as a Last Man Standing match.

It wasn't the first match of the night, but the battle for
the vacated Hardcore title wasn't very high up on the card. (The title was
vacant due to Road Dogg being injured and unable to compete.) The hardcore
division was still relatively new in WWF but was gaining momentum in the wake
of ECW's exploding cult popularity. Mankind had been crowned the first Hardcore
champion, which was fitting based on the work he had done not just throughout
his career but at the onset of the Attitude Era, not to mention in the presence of that ominous
cage in Pittsburgh. But with Mankind in a main event WWF title feud, the
division was beginning to be built around Al Snow, who himself, was coming off
a memorable match with Road Dogg that ended in the snow; one of the most
memorable finishes in WWF history.

Although the match between Snow and Holly was microwaved
within the last week before the pay-per-vew, there was enough backstory to give
the match a little weight. It's an easy story. Two former friends, two former
stable-mates from the JOB Squad, the group of sure losers, layered on top of
the quest of Snow to win his first single's title.

"People can talk all they want to about how certain
wrestlers are too rough or don't work soft enough, but last time I checked,
wrestling was a contact sport. I don't know what some people who get in that
ring are expecting, but we sure as hell aren't going to go ballroom
dancing." - Bob Holly, The Hardcore Truth

...

Snow's entrance is layered with pops. Massively over.
Arguably as over as anyone outside of the main event echelon.

Holly's music hits, but it's not quite the badass entrance
theme he would have later. In fact, he's still coming out to the JOB Squad
theme and still clad in his JOB Squad trunks. There's a confusion with the
audience. They don't know how to take Holly in this role. He's not a heel. He
was the one trying to help his friend by stopping him from beating the hell out
of himself. No, he can't be booed. But he's not getting much of an ovation
either. And its understandable. There's not much of a character there yet, and
for the most part Holly was used as well, a jobber, an enhancement guy. How
often did the crowd pop for Barry Horrowitz or Brooklyn Brawler? You can even
see the look on Holly's face as a down the middle character. Could go either
way. Hands on his hips as he walks to the ring. No pandering to the crowd. Eyes
on the ring. As Howard Finkle announces him, he's representing the JOB Squad.
He's Bob Holly. Pure and simple.

No lock-ups, no arm drag take-downs or hip tosses. In fact,
it takes less than 30 seconds for this match to go to the outside. Holly sells
on the go, Snow quickly pillages for weapons to use. I'm not sure I appreciated
Holly's toughness as much as I did revisiting this and seeing him take an
unprotected chair shot to the head and be on to the next spot within 30 seconds; fitting foreshadowing to the handle he will bestow in the coming weeks.

The battle heads to the crowd and not long after heads to
the backstage area. WWF make no economy of falls count anywhere. Can you blame
them? Road Dogg and Al Snow fought in the snow. The bar was set pretty high. It
might not have been snowing in Memphis, but it's still a freezing 30 degrees as
Snow and Holly destroy as much as they can in the area on the way out the door.

Michael Cole on commentary finds pockets of space to plug,
no pun intended, the fact that Holly is by trade a welder as he tries to build
his toughness through biography for the fans at home. He lays down the fact
that Holly has been the Intercontinental Champion and a Tag Team Champion
"for a cup of coffee." He builds Snow as a man searching for that
first singles title. It's admirable work to build the finish that one of them
will have gold by the end of the match.

Poor Tim White. He looks gassed as they get deeper into the Memphis
night outside the ridiculous pyramid arena. The Blair Witch WWF camera crew in
tow. It becomes a brawling Bruce Springsteen song as they head down to the
river. Why not beat the shit out of each other with the mighty Mississip as a
backdrop?

Branches, barbwire, and finally a hip toss...into the river.
They finish on the bank, Holly with the clever tactic of rolling Snow in a
chain-link fence and getting the win. Bob Holly, new Hardcore Champion.

Holly runs back through the downtown Memphis area to return
to the arena and claim his new belt. He celebrates like the haunting image of Platoon, on his knees
exhausted from the battle.

...

"The seed that been planted in thee Brawl for All about
me being tough had come through and now they thought I would be a good fit for
the hardcore division, so Vince said that if I was going to be hardcore, I'd
better be called Hardcore Holly. I was more than happy with that." - Bob Holly, The Hardcore Truth

The Valentine's Day Massacre launched the new Hardcore
Holly. The fans in the arena didn't explode with his win of the Hardcore Title,
but in beating Al Snow clean with no dus-tup in the manner he did, a new persona
was born.

The finish of the match down on the river bank obviously
gets the most attention in conjunction with the wintry finish Snow had with
Road Dogg. However, as a hardcore match, it builds beautifully to that
conclusion through a methodical sell on the run. If you listen to the Steve
Austin Show on Podcast One, he loves to say that about Undertaker as how he
sells as a big man. This entire match is a sell on the run as they work
throughout the arena and beyond. Broken brooms, floor tiles, trash cans, and
branches outside. It's not out of control and hardcore for the sake of hardcore,
but more so it gave both men some build on the way to WrestleMania. Snow still
eluded by the championship; Holly now a viable tough guy in a division gaining
momentum in WWF.

...

"I started to get over with the crowd. They started
reacting to me in a way they never had before. That's because my character
finally felt right. It worked because I was comfortable. I was comfortable
because Hardcore Holly was me, through and through." - Bob Holly, The Hardcore Truth

February 15, 1999. Monday Night Raw. The night following the
Massacre pay-per-view, Holly defends his recently won Hardcore Championship
against Steve Blackman.

Holly walks out first with arms and belt raised. He slaps
hands with some fans, still appearing to lean toward being a face at the moment
but the reaction is still mostly ambivalence from the crowd. Holly still looks
like he's still trying to find this new character. Can you blame him? You go
from being a part of the JOB Squad to being a champion. The usual enhancement
talent entrance just won't do.

Blackman comes out next, but he doesn't have to travel far.
Holly is immediately headed up the ramp to meet him, and soon after they are
fighting in the backstage area. Well, that didn't take long...

This is a short and sweet affair, but it's effectively
brutal. Metal beer signs, whatever can be grabbed. It's all fair game and open
season. Whatever they can't grab they throw each other at each other.

You almost wish Holly and Blackman had more than five
minutes to really let this brawl fester because they beat the hell out of each
other. Blackman belly-to-belly suplexes Holly into the side of the equipment
truck, as they head toward their finish in the loading dock area. Holly has an
object in hand but Blackman executes one of his patented martial arts kicks
that sends Holly into a dumpster.

Blackman's in the driver's seat. What the plan was next with
Holly in the dumpster we will never know because Droz appears with a giant lead
pipe and ambushes Blackman. A retaliatory shot from an incident the previous
week. Holly crawls out of the dumpster to pick up the pin on the loading dock.

Holly runs back to the ring, but there's something different
about this entrance to claim his title belt. He angrily snatches the
microphone. "I'll make this short and sweet..."

He's not kidding. He gets right to the point about having
lame gimmicks and weak tag team partners over the years but pronounces that
this is Bob Holly's time, and he his hardcore. He ends with an open challenge
to anyone who wants to come down and take his title away from him.

Where there might have been marked ambivalence between the
pay-per-view and his entrance on Raw, Holly instantly draws heat for being
disgruntled. In 2011, that would get you a t-shirt and a three year contract.
Just ribbing. Holly didn't drop the pipe bomb CM Punk would drop 12 years
later, but it's a truly honest promo that comes from a place of verisimilitude.

Yes, being Thurman or Sparky Plugg was a lame gimmick from a time when characters were more cartoonish. Weak
tag team partners? Eh, maybe, maybe not, but it gets good heat. It's a damn
fine promo that is as short and sweet as he said it would be and accomplishes
the goal of getting a reaction from the crowd.

The Brawl For All music hits, and it's Bart Gunn who comes
out to answer Holly's challenge. Being a former tag team partner of Holly's in
the failed rejuvenation of the Midnight Express, he takes umbrage with Holly's
comment of "weak tag team partners."

Gunn's run through the Brawl For All tournament was an
unexpected win, as it has been maintained numerously that the tournament was a
planned launching pad for Dr. Death Steve Williams, who Gunn knocked out in one
of the early rounds. In fact, Gunn's knock out ability became his staple en
route to beating Bradshaw to win in the finals.

But Holly is quick to point out that he was the only one
Gunn could not knock out, and it is an accurate statement. Gunn beat Holly by
decision to win that first round they competed in.

But this is 1999. That wasn't Hardcore Holly that Gunn was
in the ring against. Nevertheless, the challenge is accepted for the following
week on Raw. Holly's Hardcore Championship on the line against Ben Roethlisberger.
I mean, Bart Gunn.

...

"Because Bart and I were riding together, we had a
chance to talk before the fight. We agreed that whatever happened, happened. I
knew that Bart used to do tough-man contests too, so I had my work cut out for
me. Even though he'd never wrestled a bear...We went out there and laid into
each other. It was brutal. He hit me so fucking hard, I ended up on the other
side of the ring...but he didn't knock me out....He told me 'I hit you with
some good shots - it shocked me when you didn't go down.' I had a black eye for
a solid week after that fight, but he never knocked me down." - Bob Holly
on his match with Bart Gunn during the 1998 Brawl For All tournament, The
Hardcore Truth

That being said, you know what you were about to get when
these two clashed almost a year later with the Hardcore Championship on the
line.

As opposed to his first title defense that never made it to
the ring, Holly and Gunn do the jaw jacking and the shoves in the center of
the squared circle before they start swinging away. By 15 seconds in, the match
is on the outside. So much for those take-downs the purists were hoping for...

Gunn's left hook which has been hyped since his performance
in the Brawl For All unfortunately runs into the same troubled water that
present day Big Show's WMD knockout punch runs into. Any other time it
connects, it does only the usual amount of damage a wrestling punch can. It
loses its zeal.

Then again, the left hook wasn't billed as Gunn's finisher
by any means, just a signature. But he throws it early, and Holly sells it with
a minimal stagger before he throws a right of his own. Within the next minute,
he's got a glass pitcher and steel chair smashed against his former tag
partner's head. The crowd starts to get into it because it looks unbelievably
brutal.

By the time they circle back around to the ramp, it's Bart
that has the upper hand and delivers a perfect suplex square on the metal,
followed up with a DDT. The bumps look great. As the battle moves towards the
Titantron area, Gunn smashes a watermelon and a connected pipe over the fallen
Holly, who responds with a crate of bananas to the head. The bag of flour is
the real sight. A cloud of white, covering Holly and the poor referee.

Michael Cole never ceases to build Gunn and his Brawl For
All win while adding that Gunn is a man "with a giant chip on his
shoulder." And it looks like at this point that he can add Hardcore
Champion on top of those other chestnuts. And then, suddenly, a masked martial
artist, who is obviously not a fan of Bart Gunn, attacks and sends him off the
stage area to a table below. Massive bump. Massive pop.

Holly wastes no time getting to the floor to cover Gunn for
the pin. Winner and still champion: Hardcore Holly.

...

The masked fellow was easily Dr. Death Steve Williams, a
fitting person to interfere against Bart Gunn due to losing in the Brawl For
All to him the previous year when Williams was so heavily favored to win the
thing.

Regardless, Holly and Gunn put on a hell of match, which
easily could have been a feud that continued for a few more shows, even a
pay-per-view. Having Holly go over via interference for the second week in a
row, combined with his new brazen attitude, further sold him as a credible heel
champion. And what makes a heel even better is when he's damn good at what he
does. Holly's toughness and ability to navigate a hardcore match and tell a
compelling story showed that this was definitely his niche in the Attitude Era
of "fuck it, whatever gets people excited."

There has always been something about a heel who talks
tough, acts tough, fights tough, and then wins via the help of someone else
that can really get a response from the crowd. And it didn't hurt Gunn to lose
via the interference especially with a match to be made between him and
Butterbean at WrestleMania that would effectively end his WWF career.

...

The build to WrestleMania XV takes an interesting turn the
following week when unexpectedly, Billy Gunn is thrown into the mix against
Hardcore Holly with the Hardcore Championship on the line. This begins a
package that doesn't really make that much sense.

First off, Billy Gunn, who at this point of 1999 is being
built to be a main event talent, is not a hardcore wrestler, nor does he belong
in a hardcore match.

Second, why not have Road Dogg in this position? A logical, fantastic build. "Hardcore Holly, you didn't beat me to get that belt, and
the only reason you got that belt was because I was injured." Of course,
choose a few of those words to spell out and add a "shizzle" to the
end of one of them for the full Road Dogg effect, but you get the idea.

Holly and Billy Gunn do put on a great wrestling match, but
it's a very stripped down, light, almost negligible hardcore match, which isn't
a bad thing at all. But as a company, you're building a guy named Hardcore
Holly, and you've done it well over the course of only two weeks by having him
beat the hell out of everyone and take a hell of a beating himself.

It wouldn't be so bad, but Gunn drops Holly with the Fameasser
and wins the Hardcore Championship.

Luckily, the program for the Hardcore Championship brought
together new champion Billy Gunn, Hardcore Holly, and the lovable underdog Al
Snow. What could have been with Road Dogg...God dammit.

Triple threats on the whole are lousy affairs. Invariably,
someone has to take a bump and sell it as something incapacitating for five
minutes while the other two wrestlers continue the action.

This triple threat is honestly not too bad and not too
cliched. The hardcore element provides a little more justification for staying away from the action a little longer. This match carries tremendous energy and is a perfect
WrestleMania opener.

Holly's entrance finally has the classic Hardcore Holly
theme that is most likely being played on Spike TV at this moment previewing
another new show. He has that "fuck you" look on his face as he walks
to the ring. It's all come together finally. What a transition from the Bob
Holly that was just another member of the JOB Squad just a few weeks ago.

This is the perfect set-up for a WrestleMania moment for Al
Snow, who is still being built by commentary as the one looking to accomplish
his dream by getting the title.

I love this finish because anyone who has played WWF No
Mercy on the Nintendo 64 did this. Billy Gunn hits the Fameasser on Al Snow
with a chair beneath him. Holly breaks the pin with a chair shot of his own and
then covers Snow himself to get the win and the title. The air in the crowd
instantly vanishes in shock. They were counting on Snow or even the massively
over Gunn to get the win. No, sir. This is Hardcore Holly's time.

...

"Wrestling is a tough business. Some people talked
about me being a bully - those people don't know a thing. Because I played the
gimmick of being a no-nonsense, grumpy bastard, my critics just assumed I beat
people up. If I'd been given the Doink gimmick, nobody would have accused me of
being a bully. I still would have gone out there and done my job so well you
couldn't have slid a piece of paper between my fist and the other guy's
forehead." - Bob Holly, The Hardcore Truth

Hardcore Holly lost the Hardcore Championship to Al Snow the
next month at the Backlash pay-per-view, which capped off Snow's journey from
getting pinned in the snow in early January to his title moment.

This was only the beginning for the Hardcore Holly
character. Not long after, he would be launched into a summer program of being
"The Big Shot" who believed he was a super heavyweight above the
ranks of Big Show and Kane. It gave more promo time to Holly and further
seasoned his character of being a cocky, arrogant asshole who also happens to
be one of the toughest guys on the roster.

...

Epilogue

I will never say that Bob "Hardcore" Holly was the
greatest unsung hero of the Attitude Era. I won't become a hindsight, arm chair
booker as to how Holly could have been a bigger star. Things just didn't turn
out that way. But it's not to say that what he did put out there wasn't, by and
large, underrated.

This brief timeline we have explored is at the genesis of a
very popular part of the Attitude Era, the hardcore division.

Mick Foley was given the belt, but there were going to have
to be others to keep that energy and momentum going. Al Snow was a perfect
undercard Mick Foley-esque character seeking and challenging and coming so close to being the
Hardcore Champion like Foley, himself was with the WWF Title. To balance out a babyface's quest, a new heel was needed.

Bob Holly in the span of a month went from being "Oh I
remember that guy..." to "That's Hardcore Holly. He'll fuck ya
up." This era for him, beginning in February of 1999 and running to the
fall was a damn good run.

I had mentioned this last time when I went on ad nauseum
about how amazing the Attitude Era podcast is. Those guys are probably over it
by now, but above everything else, including the humor and the satirical take
on the wrestling times of long ago, it allows us who only focused on Steve
Austin riding a beer truck for three years to remember and re-examine those
hidden gems of talent that could work well in the ring and deliver a compelling
character.

This first sent me down the rabbit hole of Hardcore Holly.
But where I find myself in the greatest of appreciation for his work comes from
his bookThe Hardcore Truth. I won't launch into a book review, but
in the company of wrestling books, it's brash honesty and unwillingness to ride
the line of apolitical diction puts it in a conversation with Mick Foley's Have a Nice Day. Obviously, Foley's book is a jersey hanging in the
rafters, it's untouchable. But The Hardcore Truth is a wonderful
examination of a man behind a character. The wrestling business is a "never say never" kind of world. I hope the present
day WWE has a place for Hardcore Holly in the near future. I really do. Until then, thank god for the WWE Network to revisit that which we might have missed so long ago.